Ophelia’s Rosemary

She could feel her toes create

splashes of minute puddles as

they pressed on wet limestone.

The fortune-teller who smelled like oranges and tobacco had told her this day would come.

It was the careful undressing of an onion, that she skinned effortlessly with a knife, the onion she pressed against her lips, the onion that stained her fingers and perhaps goat blood she smeared on forest trees when she chanted black magic spells, the night of the lunar eclipse.

She trotted forward as if the music of the wind, the whistling wind-chimes and swaying trees had echoed a longingness in her.

As if the dark murky waters had called her home.